I hadn’t planned on doing a list today, but then noticed that I have a week yet before I leave for Tucson (gads, I REALLY need to start getting ready). Here is the last of the Novak collection material. Now this will certainly be my last e-mail offering until late February or maybe even early March.

BRENHAM, Kansas: (Pallasite).
This is actually an etched part slice of a piece that is all iron (common in Seymchan but fairly rare for Brenham). It was cut from a 69kg piece that was found on October 30, 2005. This is a nearly square piece with one natural edge has a nice etch though not as strong (deep) as I’ve seen on some pieces.
74.1 gram etched iron part slice – 50mm x 50mm x 4mm - $125

CAMPO del CIELO, Argentina: Coarse octahedrite (IAB). Found 1576.
The way this one looked when I got it, I almost could believe that the piece was truly found nearly 440 years ago. It was pretty ratty. Actually a bit of wire-brushing is all it really needed. This is clearly one of the “old” Campos but I don’t think it is as bad as many of those turned out to be. Many would completely break apart after awhile. This one merely had surface rust and only a few fragments of any size that came off while cleaning. This certainly is not a specimen for people living in Florida but it is a nice cheap “larger” iron piece (and priced about $60 cheaper than Mr. Novak paid for it years ago).
1428 gram individual – 120mm x 55mm x 50mm - $115

DRONINO, Russia: Ataxite, Ni-poor (ungrouped). Found July 2000. Tkw = around 3000 kilograms.
This is a “natural” (in shape, it has been wire brushed) individual. It had a fairly good layer of rust on it when I got it but it cleaned up easily with wire brushing. One side of this piece is quite smooth and resembles pretty much any other wire-brushed meteorite. The other side though shows a number of fairly large pockets of softer (likely sulfide) material. Not a bad hand specimen as it is now but it should be stored away from moisture as much as possible.
883.1 gram individual – 140mm x 58mm x 25mm - $400

GHUBARA, Oman: (L5). Found 1954.
I know that this is officially labeled as just an L5 but it is really far more interesting than that. Years ago, when I had this material to sell (including this piece, Gordon got it from me) it was discovered that this meteorite consists of fragments of L5 material in an L3 host! But it gets even better. Just recently (within the past few months anyway) I read a paper on Ghubara in Meteoritics and Planetary Science (the technical journal that comes with your Meteoritical Society membership). It now says that Ghubara is a regolith (surface of its parent body) breccia. BUT it is not “just” an ordinary regolith breccia but one that was from the surface of the ORIGINAL L-chondrite parent body. So, this meteorite formed on the surface of the L parent before it got smashed apart (and showered the Earth with a huge number of meteorites) around 500 million years ago. Kind of neat. Kind of wish I had gotten more of this stuff (or sold off less of it) back when it was readily available. This is a wonderful obviously complete individual. It does not really show any fusion crust any more, but it has the complete meteorite rounded shape with the occasional thumbprint.
1495 gram complete individual – 130mm x 90mm x 80mm - SOLD

LIBYAN DESERT GLASS:
This is an “individual” that has one small (10mm x 8mm) end chipped. The remainder is obvious original surfaces. This is not the clearest of specimens (and is priced accordingly). It looks fairly foggy looking at it when it is just sitting on a table but it is interesting when held up to a light. Light passes through it quite nicely. The bubbles in the piece have an obvious layering to them. One end o the piece (the end with a chip) is distinctly more yellow as well.
46.0 gram individual – 50mm x 30mm x 25mm - $70

MOLDAVITE:
This is a really nice little piece that has been mounted (glued with silicone I think) to a small wood display base. The specimen is of very good quality, showing nice shape and surface features. I can’t be sure of the weight exactly, but I am certain that it is 6 grams or a bit over.
About 6 gram individual on wood display base – 30mm x 15mm x 7mm - $45

NANTAN, China: Medium octahedrite (IAB). Found 1958.
Here is a nice fist-sized piece that I can pretty much guarantee won’t rust. That is because this is pretty much already all rust. This is a nice solid piece of the oxide material from this fall. This is like the Canyon Diablo material – a mix of magnetite, hematite and other oxides and hydroxides so there is no metal left to rust further. I am NOT going to cut this open to be sure that that is fully the case in this piece though. This one required absolutely nothing to get it ready for market. It is just as I got it. It has a nice yellow, brown and even some red coloration and is actually a nice “large” display piece.
1069 gram oxide individual – 125mm x 90mm x 55mm - $100

NWA unstudied:
This, in my opinion, was the nicer of the two “large” NWAs Gordon had in his collection. This is quite solid and I can tell it would be quite fresh internally. I may end up cutting it. It looks like it has a couple interesting inclusions showing on the surface so it mighty be pretty interesting internally. This almost looks like it could be an 869 but its not quite exact. Regardless, it is a nice hand specimen. It looks to have something over 50% of its exterior being fusion crust (though much of it is somewhat wind polished). The remainder is secondary crust or old breaks (no fresh breaks on this piece).
876.7 gram individual – 90mm x 80mm x 50mm - $260

SANTA CATHERINA, Brazil: Ni-rich ataxite (ungrouped). Found 1875. Tkw = over 7tons.
I got two pieces of this in the Novak collection. One is an end piece and the other is a complete “individual”. Unfortunately, they are both oxide pieces. But then, I think this is the only way I have ever seen this meteorite available. The outer surfaces of theses are orange/ brown with some darker veining and, the “complete” piece having obvious lighter colored fragments embedded in it. The interior of the cut piece shows a dark gray/ brown magnetite and limonite mix. From the label (that I am putting with the larger piece) and the painted XZZ mark on the end piece, I am pretty certain that Gordon got these from me when I was selling the Tom Palmer collection many years ago.
a) 74.3 gram end piece – 55mm x 35mm x 25mm - $70
b) 119.7 gram “individual” – 55mm x 40mm x 30mm - $100

Tucson show info: I will be gone from January 27th through about February 18th (yep, this show has me on the road for far too loooong). For the show dates I am at my usual spot – Room 134 of Ramada Limited (665 N. Freeway for those with GPS). I should have my room open mid-morning of January 31st. At this point, I plan on staying for the bitter end – February 14th (I have found that I generally do quite well the last few days while the “main show” is open). I’ll open most mornings at 10AM and should be open most evenings until around 9:30 to 10PM – later (within reason) if people are visiting/ hanging around.

TOLUCA, Mexico: Coarse octahedrite (IAB). Found 1776.I don’t normally offer mixed bags of an item like this, but I somehow ended up with an assortment of pieces the past few months (after not really having any for a few years). The smaller pieces here are pretty much “natural” (uncut or brushed) fragments that are mostly oxide (though some certainly still have an appreciable amount of metal in them). These are cheap and a good way for someone to add a small sample of this famous (and relatively hard to get in small pieces) meteorite to their collection (most buyers will actually get a piece somewhat larger than the listed ones on these first 2 items). One of the heavier pieces is obviously still all metal as it has a polished face. The slice is etched on both sides. The largest individual has a Monig number painted on it (M8.33) – the only such Toluca I have ever seen.a) 9.7 gram “oxide” fragment – 22mm x 15mm x 12mm - $5b) 20.5 gram “oxide” fragment – 25mm x 24mm x 15mm - $10c) 76.0 gram “oxide” fragment – 45mm x 40mm x 23mm - $50d) 100.0 gram etched part slice (one cut edge) – 80mm x 60mm x 3mm - $100e) 105.7 gram metallic fragment/ individual with polished face – 40mm x 30mm x 22mm - $65f) 479g brushed metallic individual with Monig number – 90mm x 45mm x 35mm - $400

NWA 7899: Ordinary chondrite (L6), W1. Found before September 2011. Tkw = 420.2 grams.This is one I wish I had a lot more of. The outside of this egg-shaped piece showed some black lines indicating that some shock veining was present. On a cut surface though, this one makes you say “wow!” It is among the very best breccias I have seen. It has light/medium gray and tan clasts (of all sizes) in a medium to dark gray (shocked) background. This is truly a great display specimen for getting the concept of brecciation across. I have ONLY this piece right now. I have the other half of this stone yet (planned to make it a collection piece) and may end up having to try to cut some slices off of it sometime later (it’ll have to be wire sawed. It was not easy to split this egg with the equipment I have and I’d probably only mess the thing up if I tried). 121.6 gram end piece – 80mm x 60mm x 15mm - $600

NWA 8185: Ordinary chondrite. (L5), S2, W3. Found before February 2009. Tkw = 793 grams.This is yet another one of those offered to me as “primitive” but turned out not to be (thankfully, I think I have finally figured out how to pick out the real primitive achondrites with my XRF, at least with a cut surface). That part did not surprise me. The L-type did though. This has the medium gray color, somewhat porous texture typical for the H5s and H6s these “possible primitives” usually turn out to be. The research work though clearly showed that this is indeed an L. The interior shows many light gray somewhat angular to rounded clasts (but no real distinct chondrules) in a gray with hints of green matrix. Kind of different. 1) Slices: a) 8.5 grams - 25mm x 22mm x 4mm - $15 b) 16.1 grams - 40mm x 32mm x 5mm - $25 c) 37.4 grams - 70mm x 60mm x 3mm - $55 – complete slice.2) End piece:a) 214.5 grams - 70mm x 57mm x 35mm - $300 – Main mass.

NWA 5421: (LL3.7), cluster chondrite. Found 2007. Tkw = 2.2 kilogrmas.This is one Matt and I shared some years ago but I sold mine out before it got to any type of public offering. This is because of its amazing appearance. Most of this is nothing but a mass of large distorted chondrules tightly packed together with virtually no matrix what so ever. I got an extra chunk from Matt a couple years ago and sent it to be wire sawed, as it was an odd size and shape and wouldn’t fit into my saw. Thankfully, this took a long time to get done (around a year and a half I think). In the meantime, I learned about “cluster chondrites” from an article in Meteoritics and Planetary Sciences that described these things and had pictures of NWA (5205) as an example that exactly matched my meteorite. “Cluster chondrites” are not really a new class but usually found as small inclusions in other type 3 stones (this particular meteorite just happens to be pretty much one gigantic such “clast”). They are extremely low in matrix, composed of over 80% chondrules (the highest of all meteorites). These chondrules are deformed and indicate that they accreted while still hot hours to days after forming (which hints that they may have formed by low velocity impacts between semi-molten bodies). These “rocks” are believed to likely represent pieces of THE primary accretionary rocks (first solidified rocks that were often then later broken up and mixed into later chondrites). Wish I knew about all of this when I first got it. I don’t have a lot of this left now. These pieces are pretty much all the “cluster chondrite” texture. Only the large full slice has zones of finer texture (40%).1) Slices:a) 1.3 grams - 15mm x 10mm x 2.5mm - $25b) 2.6 grams - 23mm x 12mm x 3mm - $50c) 5.5 grams - 28mm x 22mm x 3mm - $100d) 10.5 grams - 40mm x 30mm x 3mm - $190e) 20.3 grams - 52mm x 48mm x 2.5mm - $350 – ½ slicef) 92.6 grams - 115mm x 70mm x 4mm - $1350 – complete slice.

HUCKITTA, Australia: (Pallasite). Found 1937.Here are a few cut fragments I re-discovered while doing inventory last month. Looking through my records, it seems that I have not offered any of this meteorite on a mailed list for over a decade (however, I have offered the occasional piece on e-mailed offerings over the years). Anyway, these are the usual oxidized pieces that show dark olivine in a blue gray (magnetite and hematite) matrix. I once had quite a lot of this meteorite (8 kg or so), but this is the last of it and this material has gotten fairly scarce these days. I don’t really foresee being able to obtain any sizable quantity of this meteorite in the future (I don’t know of anybody that has some). So, grab one of these if you have been wanting to add this name to your collection. I have only one each of the two larger sizes listed here. 1) Cut fragments:a) 15.7 grams - 28mm x 26mm x 10mm - $39b) 22.5 grams - 35mm x 20mm x 18mm - $55c) 38.9 grams - 45mm x 22mm x 20mm - $90d) 90.4 grams - 60mm x 30mm x 25mm - $200

CARBONADO, Brazil: Black diamonds that may be from space.Here are some of the weird diamonds I have spent years trying to acquire since reading about them. The last batch of “Brazilian carbonados” I was sold were clearly not. These very clearly are. These weird, often large diamonds are not really crystals but more of an aggregate of microscopic crystals packed together (interestingly, this structure makes them actually harder than regular diamonds). As such, these seem to have formed by a vapor deposition method somehow. Their chemistry is also unlike any other diamonds. They don’t contain any deep mantle minerals (as other diamonds do). Among many other special features, they have nitrogen and hydrogen in their structure as well as strange minerals including reduced Fe, Si, Ti, FeNi metal and the mineral osbournite (TiN) which has previously only been found in meteorites. It has been concluded by some that these likely formed during the formation of a white dwarf star (which we are learning can basically BE a diamond), with some being blown into our area of space during the super nova that formed them around 3.8 billion years ago.1) Individual “crystals” as found:a) 4.1 carat (.82 grams) - 9mm x 8mm x 6mm - $300b) 17.1 carat (3.42 grams) - 14mm x 12mm x 10mm - sold

Please note: The post office keeps increasing shipping rates (despite the government’s official claim is that there is no inflation). For small US orders $3 should still be fine for now. Larger orders are now $12 (insurance is extra if desired – I’ll look it up if you want it). The real increases came in overseas (or even Canada) shipping. These prices pretty much doubled from what they were a couple years ago. Now small overseas orders are around $9 (I’ll have to custom quote any larger items/ orders). Thankfully, it seems that the rate for registration (recommended on more valuable overseas orders) is still around $12. I do have a new fax machine that seems to work (but I have to answer it and manually turn it on), so overseas people can contact me that way if they must However, for overseas orders, it probably is best to go ahead and use my brmeteorites@yahoo.com e-mail.